Determining sector status in a memory device
AssigneeMicron Technology, Inc.
InventorsMehdi Asnaashari, Yu-Song Liao, Siamack Nemazie
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present disclosure includes methods, devices, modules, and systems for operating semiconductor memory. A number of method embodiments include reading data from memory cells corresponding to a sector of data, determining a number of the memory cells in a non-erased state, and, if the number of the memory cells in a non-erased state is less than or equal to a number of errors correctable by an ECC engine, determining the sector is erased.
Claims28
A method for determining sector status in a memory device, comprising:
- reading data from memory cells corresponding to a sector of data;
- determining a number of the memory cells in a non-erased state;
- and
- if the number of the memory cells in a non-erased state is less than or equal to a number of errors correctable by an ECC engine, determining the sector is erased, wherein the number of errors correctable by the ECC engine is given by:
- (Dmin−1)/2
- wherein Dmin is a minimum distance of a code associated with the ECC engine.
A method for determining sector status in a memory device, comprising:
- performing a read operation to read data from memory cells corresponding to a sector of data, wherein the sector of data is associated with a payload portion and a header portion;
- if a number of the memory cells are determined to be in a non-erased state, determining whether the number of memory cells in a non-erased state is less than or equal to a number of errors correctable by an error correction code (ECC) engine;
- and
- if the number of memory cells in a non-erased state is less than or equal to the number of errors correctable by the ECC engine, determining the sector is erased, wherein the number of errors correctable by the ECC engine is given by:
- (Dmin−1)/2
- wherein Dmin is a minimum distance of a code associated with the ECC engine.
A method for determining sector status in a memory device, comprising:
- reading data from memory cells corresponding to a sector of data;
- error checking the read data if a number of the memory cells are determined to be in a non-erased state;
- and
- if the read data includes a number of correctable errors:
- correcting the number of correctable errors;
- determining whether a number of bits of data corrected in association with correcting the number of correctable errors is equal to the number of memory cells determined to be in a non-erased state;
- and
- determining the sector is erased if the number of bits of data corrected in association with correcting the number of correctable errors is equal to the number of memory cells determined to be in a non-erased state.
A memory device, comprising:
- a plurality of memory cells corresponding to a sector of data;
- and
- a controller coupled to the plurality of memory cells, wherein:
- the controller includes:
- a module configured to determine a number of the memory cells that are in a non-erased state;
- an error correction code (ECC) engine configured to:
- detect errors in the sector;
- determine whether the errors are correctable;
- and
- correct the errors if the errors are correctable;
- and
- the controller is configured to determine whether the number of corrected errors is equal to the number of memory cells that were determined to be in the non-erased state.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.